Vanderbilt appoints Lea to be head coach. But why?

Amongst the roars going on at Auburn, it’s been hardly noticed or really reported that Vanderbilt has appointed Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea to be their next head coach.

Lea, 38, was a former player with Vanderbilt. He played fullback.

OUR REACTION

While Vandy fans might be happy at getting a ‘legacy’ as their head coach, the question has to be asked: “Why another coodinator?”

Listen, we know that Vanderbilt has hardly been the place to go for interested head coaches. The facilities suck, the stadium sucks, and despite being in Nashville, bigger SEC schools swamp the area and hoover up even in the 3 star recruits.

But James Franklin’s tenure should have meant that someone else would have jumped at the chance. Mason looked like a great hire….until he didn’t.

And we get why they went for someone like Lea. He’s obviously a brilliant young defensive mind (what he’s done with Notre Dame’s defense this year has been exceptional), and Vanderbilt’s academic rigors mean that they have to compete for the sort of mental high-flier that would look to Notre Dame, Stanford or other more academically-stringent schools as a destination.

We just hope that Vanderbilt going down to the well again and not bothering either to go for good non-Power 5 head coaches won’t backfire on them as badly as it did with Mason.